


Burden To Bear

by clockworkowenge



Category: Legacies (TV 2018)
Genre: Angst, Father Figures, Gay Male Character, Genderbending, Goodbyes, Love Triangles, M/M, Not Really Character Death, Self-Sacrifice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:01:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23167414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clockworkowenge/pseuds/clockworkowenge
Summary: Genderbent!Hope AUA one-shot exploring how the story would differ from canon if Hope were replaced with my original character Owen, Clarke told Landon about their relation to Malivore sooner and Owen stormed Triad to get answers from Clarke, not realising that Landon had followed him there.Canon divergent and heavily AU from the start but still somewhat canon-compliant with some dialogue here and there.
Relationships: Hope Mikaelson & Alaric Saltzman, Landon Kirby/Hope Mikaelson, Ryan Clarke/Hope Mikaelson
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5





	Burden To Bear

None of it made _sense_.

Landon's father being Malivore, Owen remembering things about the great pit of tar-like goo that nobody else did, Clarke's obsession with raising said pit; it was all so completely ambiguous and confusing...

...until it wasn't.

The epiphany crept up on Owen as quickly as everything else had blown up around him. The common link between him and the way Malivore had been created in the first place. The coincidence involved in the coming together of the tribrid and the phoenix son of Malivore. It all, after making no sense at all, suddenly made _too much_ sense. It was all on him. His burden to carry, so that the people he loved could be safe from the impending doom that loomed over their heads.

With a heavy sigh, the Mikaelson heir paced the grated metal platform suspended over the sinisterly bubbling pit. He could do this. He _had_ to do this. He knew it was possible to make this kind of sacrifice because hadn't it basically become his legacy? His mother had sacrificed herself to save him from Roman's twisted family. His father had sacrificed himself to destroy the Hollow. His uncle Elijah had sacrificed his own sanity so many times in order to ensure that Owen had a father worthy of the title. What other ending could he ever have expected for himself if not this?

As much as he wanted to analyse the rhetorical questions whizzing around in his brain, there wasn't exactly a lot of time to spare. Malivore was rising and he needed to be stopped. What little time that was left, Owen knew he had to spend it preparing himself. Clarke had told him that anyone who fell into the pit would be erased from the minds of those they left behind. How could that work for _him_ if there was evidence of his existence all over the Salvatore school?

The tribrid knew there was only one person that had the ability to do what needed to be done but he also knew that the conversation would be hard and convincing him to comply would be considerably more so. Still, there was no time to dwell on hardships. There was work to be done.

Taking out his phone, he started to dial the number when he suddenly found himself being grabbed by the shoulder and so he dropped the phone in surprise as he spun on his heels and lashed out on instinct. His grip closed around his would-be attacker's throat and it took a moment for his eyes to adjust before he recognised just who it was that had crept up on him. Stormy blue eyes glared down at him underneath wildly unkempt furrowed eyebrows and unruly curls.

_Landon._

Quickly relinquishing his grip, Owen watched as the boy he loved took a few deep breaths, spluttering a couple of sharp coughs before he righted himself and nodded minutely.

"Okay, I deserved that. Shoulda known better than to creep up on you but still..." the Phoenix started, his voice sounding rather hoarse as his throat muscles started to relax from the previous pressure that had been applied. "What the hell were you thinking, coming here alone? No matter how badass you are, there's always something that could've gone wrong. It's like you just can't help yourself! You just go running headfirst into danger like you actually enjoy looking for troub- _mmph_!"

Landon never got to finish the end of his sentence before Owen's lips were on his, the Mikaelson heir's arms coming up to snake around the back of his lover's neck and pulling him into him. He wanted to exist in this moment forever, the two of them connected like this, but he knew he couldn't and so he slowly retracted himself from Landon, despite the whimper of disapproval that escaped his boyfriend's throat.

" _Shut up_." he whispered, the harshness of the words falling flat against the softness of affection in his tone. "I'm sorry I left without saying anything but please, you've got to listen to me. I think I figured it out." Owen could almost feel Landon's confusion, so much so that he hadn't even needed to see the bewildered frown that cast a shadow over the Phoenix's eyes. "About what? M-Malivore?" he asked, stammering over the name of his newly-discovered father. It was obvious that he was still struggling with that particular revelation; not that Owen could blame him. After all, hadn't he been the same when he'd first seen the darkness that existed inside his own father?

Landon hadn't told him about that little detail but Clarke had been more than willing to share what he knew with a smug smirk and a condescending tone. Owen didn't hold it against his boyfriend though. How could he? Landon had to be experiencing an unfathomably huge identity crisis since the truth had come out so who would he be to expect the phoenix to break through his mind-numbing confusion for long enough to explain it?

Nodding slowly, a sad smile forming on his face as he looked up into the eyes of the boy he loved. This was going to be so hard for him and he knew there would be one last argument before the end. Oh, how he wished he could avoid that but he knew better than to hope for such a respite given the sacrifice he was about to make.

"You're going to hate it." Owen said pointedly, the guilt squeezing at his heart with an icy, vice-like grip.

Ever the jokester, Landon simply beamed and used his humour as his self-defense mechanism against the obvious foreboding tension thickening the air around them. "Well, if it's anything like that kiss, I seriously doubt that."

He wanted to make a quip back at the phoenix, to fill their last moments together with quirky, flirty banter but there wasn't any time. This had to be done _now_ because he couldn't go without telling Landon the truth. The pit was going to steal his memories either way and Owen couldn't bear the thought of his lover never hearing the truth before everything was erased. That was just too cruel.

"It's not." the Tribrid said sharply, the timbre of hos voice quaveeing slightly as his eyes stung with the tears he was desperately trying to keep from falling. "What I need to do, it's gonna change everything. It's gonna change you and everyone else that we know and... and it all starts with me."

"Clarke told me about Malivore, about how he was created. It was the blood of a witch, a werewolf and a vampire that made him and only that can destroy him. Luckily for everyone, nature hit the jackpot with me." he explained, a humourless laugh spilling from his lips as he cast his eyes down to their feet to avoid Landon's gaze. However, as much as he wanted to escape it, the gently fingers of his lover hookes under his chin to guide his line of sight back to him, stealing the last of his resolve as he took in the terrified doe eyes that stares back into his own.

"You can't. There has to be another way. There are thousands of witches, werewolves and vampires all over the world. Why does it have to be _you_?" Landon asked, his tone frantic as the depths of his fears were revealed right before Owen's eyes.

"There isn't enough _time_ , Landon. Besides, sacrificing _three_ people when it could be done with one is just selfish. I couldn't live with myself if anyone else died because of my mistakes. It _has_ to be me. If I can stop this, I can't run away from it." he snapped back in hysterical frustration, guilt attacking him from all sides as it warred with the logic that burned in his mind. "Do you think I haven't thought about this? If there was another way, I'd do that in a heartbeat but there _isn't_. This is the way it has to be if I want to save everyone I care about. If I want to save _you_."

"Then take me _with_ you. I won't let you throw your life away for me. We can do it together." Voice harsh with fearful desparation, Landon's hands shot up to cup the tribrid's cheeks firmly, pleading with his eyes as much as he was with his words as his tears rolled freely down his face. "Owen... I couldn't live without you. Especially not if I have to spend the rest of my life knowing that you gave up everything just to save me."

"That's just it. You won't _have_ to. When I jump into that pit, nobody will remember who I am or that I was ever here at all. I'll be erased, you'll all be safe and you'll have the chance to keep living your lives. This is the only way to stop Malivore with the time that's left!" Owen exclaimed, his tone becoming more desperate with each passing word until he was practically yelling in his lover's face. Forcefully, he grabbed Landon's wrists and pushed his arms down to his sides to escape his hold, breathing a shallow sigh as he took a few steps backwards.

"I _can't_ take you with me. Feeding yourself to Malivore would just be giving him what he wants and who knows how much stronger he'll be after swallowing you up. It could offset the balance and he could rise anyway and we'd just be gone while everyone else suffers. Could you really do that to Rafael? Just abandon him and leave him to die, terrified and without any memories of you? Landon, if anyone knows how horrible a future that would be, it's me. That's why I'm doing this. If I jump into the pit, I could save your life. You'll still have Raf, you'll still have the school and you'll be _safe_." Time was running out and Owen knew he had to act fast. It was cruel but he knew what he had to do, even if it broke his heart. He'd already hurt this boy so much just by being in his life but this? It felt so much worse. " _Kiss me_." he whispered breathlessly as he reached out to pull his lover towards him and crashed their lips together. One last kiss before the end, before _his_ end.

He poured everything he had into that kiss; every single drop of love, admiration, awe, respect and loyalty he had for Landon, because he deserved everything that Owen had left to give him. It was a pretty crappy consolation but it was all he had left to give him. After a few moments went by, passion swallowing both of them whole, the tribrid pulled away once more and said the only thing that there was left to be said. "I love you, Landon Kirby."

He didn't give the phoenix any chance to say it back. He knew and he'd _always_ know, wherever he ended up. With a sickening crack, Landon's neck snapped and his body fell to the grating with a muffled clang. Crouching down beside his lover, he let his fingers stroke through the unruly ebony curls at his crown once more before reaching out to grab his fallen phone that, much to Owen's relief, hadn't broken and finished dialling the half-entered number before lifting the device to his ear.

Two dial tones was all it took before he heard the gruff but obviously worried voice of Alaric Saltzman. "Owen? Where are you?" he all but yelled down the phone, the urgency in his voice only making the tribrid teenager's heart shatter from jagged fragments into powdered dust. His resolve had kept up through his entire argument with Landon, despite how much his emotions had tried to claw their way out, but this was different. This felt too similar.

"Fort Valley, Georgia." he said, fighting to keep his voice as calm and clear as possible to avoid any misunderstanding. "Landon's going to need you when I'm done. You _have_ to write it down."

"Wait, you're at _Triad Headquarters_?" Alaric asked, his voice rising an octave and softening in just the right way to make Owen wince. It was almost too much, the worry in the older man's voice, for him to keep it together and he could feel the pressure building up in his chest as the stinging in his eyes returned in full force. Still, he blinked them away. He couldn't falter. He needed to get it all out one more time before time ran out and the clock was ticking down on his window of opportunity quickly.

"Yeah... uh, don't worry though, everyone here is dead." he replied, quickly doing a scan of his surroundings to make sure that his statement still held merit. Of course, that was never going to be enough of an explanation for his headteacher and the urgent demand that the former hunter voiced in response came immediately after the tribrid had uttered the last syllable.

"Okay, you're not making any sense. Just put Landon on the phone." Owen winced at that, eyes squeezing closed for a moment as a surge of emotional pain jolted through him before he explained why that wasn't going to happen.

"I can't. I had to kill him too. I know it doesn't make any sense but him being involved in this would've made things worse, not better, and he wasn't gonna take no for an answer so I had to stop him _somehow_." The Mikaelson heir babbled through his guilt, knowing how hard his words would be to follow for his teacher, but what else could he do? He had to hurry. Before Alaric had any time to question him on Landon's death, he added to his explanation quickly. "Don't worry, he'll come back... even if I don't."

There it was, the point of impact. The heart of his explanation and the moment that all of this became real. Owen was going to die and now he felt the weight of his fate finally crashing down on top of him.

"Owen... tell me what the hell you're about to do right now before you do it." Alaric demanded in a hushed but warning tone, the one he'd heard him use on Josie and Lizzie so many times in the past. It was his dad voice and that was the point where his emotions started to spike up to hysterical levels.

"Clarke _won_!" he shouted, the pitch of his voice rising with the volume as he started to pace back and forth frantically, doing whatever he could to keep himself from turning heel and running away like a coward. He had a job to do and he couldn't flee. He couldn't disgrace his parents that way, after they'd been so brave for him. "He found the final artifact and he tossed it into the pit, which is Landon's _father_ , by the way. A fact he was all too happy to gloat about. Now Malivore's gonna rise unless I do something about it now."

The pause that followed his ravings felt like it would swallow him up and suffocate him in a way that Malivore couldn't even come close to achieving before Alaric's question rang out of the phone.

"Do _what_?" Ironically, Owen didn't think he needed to give an answer for his headteacher to know what fate he had planned for himself.

"Clarke was monologuing _super_ hard while we were fighting but, basically, Malivore was created by the blood of a werewolf, a witch and a vampire." the tribrid prattled quickly, ever conscious of the bubbling pit beneath his feet as he spoke. "It used to be that only _they_ could destroy what they created but nature found itself a neat little loophole - me. The tribrid, with the blood of all three wrapped up in a nice little package."

Bitterness flowed easily through his tone as the fear started to creep in, the hand that he wasn't using to hold his phone to his ear clenching into a tight fist, his nails digging into his palms hard enough to draw blood. The tinny quality of the phone-call did nothing to shield Owen from the harshness of Alaric's worry as he started to question the validity of his summation. "Owen, listen to me now. This is a _theory_ and you don't know if it's even gonna _work_ so you just sit tight and you wait for me to get there."

"THERE'S NO TIME!" he yelled into his phone, his resolve breaking as all of his emotions came flooding out of him like a tsunami. Tears started to roll down his face, much to his own dismay, and his voice started to waver as he became more and more unstable. "I always thought I was some cosmic mistake - someone that should never have been _born_ \- but, after all this time, I finally know what I'm actually good for! I can stop _all_ of this! I'm the only one who can! Just think about it! I can remember things about Malivore that nobody else can and that Triad weapon didn't even _work_ on me! My blood even healed Josie! How many more signs was it gonna take before we finally faced facts and realised that this is the only way to put an end to this nightmare?!"

"I am _not_ okay with this." There it was again; the dad voice. He was struggling enough already and - god - how he wished, in that moment, that his teacher had never gotten close enough to him for that tone to shake his resolve, let alone completely tear it asunder.

"I know..." the teenager sobbed out in response, moving to lean against one of the metal beams holding the grated platform up as his legs started to tremble beneath him. "...but in a few minutes it won't matter because, when I dive into that pit, nobody in the world will remember me and that includes you."

"Owen, _please_ listen to me..." Alaric began but there was no more time left to argue so instead the younger male cut his teacher off with a tone of finality.

"I have spent _years_ wondering how my parents could've done what they did. Both of them sacrificed themselves to save me and I spent all this time believing I didn't deserve it and now, _now_ I finally get it. Not only that but I actually _understand_ it..." he said, his voice shaking harder and harder as his whole body started to tremble from the force of his sobs. "...and I don't want you to have to go through that pain, Dr Saltzman, because you've already been through enough. I don't want anyone at school to miss me either because all of you are a part of my family now, even though I've tried so hard to make you all think I don't care. You're... you're the closest thing to a dad that I have now and the only comfort that I can find in any of this is that you'll be safe and you won't have to deal with any of the grief. You deserve so much better than that."

More silence followed and Owen's anxiety level was rising higher and higher until it reached the point where he couldn't bear any more. "This is the part where you tell me that you know I'm doing the right thing. That you're proud of me." he said, the tone of his voice practically begging for one last shred of parental approval in his final moments.

"You know I'm proud of you. You know it." Alaric said, his voice quavering and alerting Owen to the fact that he too was crying now. "What is it you need me to do?"

That was the final nail in the coffin for him and he finally broke completely. Bringing his bloody fist upwards, he pressed his knuckles to his mouth to supress the gutteral sob that ripped through his chest. Taking a few deep breaths, he tried to bring himself down enough from his breakdown to string together a cohesive sentence. "Call maintenance. Get them to clean out my room and the gather together all of my stuff - along with Landon's journal and all those notes that I _know_ you keep about me - and burn them. None of this will work if there's even the smallest chance that you can ever remember me."

Owen was expecting Alaric to argue and tell him he couldn't do what the teenager was asking of him but that wasn't what he got. In a hoarse and defeated tone, his only remaining father-figure responded completely unexpectedly. "Okay. I... I'll do it. I'll do it for _you_."

With no time left but so many things left unsaid, it splintered the tribrid's very soul to know he'd never have the chance to give Alaric the goodbye he deserved but there was one thing left that he could give him. It was what his mother and father had always given him and he knew that neither of them would object. Alaric was family to Owen, which meant he fell inside the borders of the promise of 'always and forever' now.

" _I love you, dad_." he whispered into the phone, his breathing becoming increasingly shallow and uneven as he was consumed by all of his warring emotions.

"I... I love you too, son."

With that, Owen dropped the phone to the floor just as the pit let out a blood-curdling roar that made him spin around quickly, eyes suddenly wide and alert as the rising danger became ever more prevalent.

"Well... here goes nothing." he said to nothing in particular before backing up and then sprinting towards the railing, diving over the top of it and flinging himself into Malivore's tar-like depths, never having seen Clarke push himself to his feet and crack his broken neck back into place before following the tribrid's movements with a panicked gaze and launching himself over the railing after him.


End file.
